2016 Call for Submissions: Tobin Siebers Prize for Disability Studies in the Humanities

The work of the late Tobin Siebers has influenced Disability Studies in field-shifting ways since the publication of his prize-winning essay “My Withered Limb” in 1998. His subsequent scholarly publications including the books Disability Theory (2008) and Disability Aesthetics (2010) as well as essays such as “A Sexual Culture for Disabled People” (2012) quickly became pivotal works in the field. Siebers’s work has galvanized new scholarship in relation to questions of representation, subjectivity, and the entry of non-normative bodies into public space, and made the study of disability a central component (alongside gender, race, sexuality, and class) in analyses of the culture wars and identity studies.

To honor this remarkable legacy, the University of Michigan Press and the University of Michigan Department of English Language and Literature announced in 2015 the establishment of The Tobin Siebers Prize for Disability Studies in the Humanities, for best book-length manuscript on a topic of pressing urgency to Disability Studies in the humanities. The 2015 award winner was Anne McGuire of the University of Toronto for her manuscript, War on Autism: On the Cultural Logic of Normative Violence, soon to be published as a University of Michigan Press book.

Reflecting the work of the scholar the prize commemorates, the competition invites submissions on a wide range of topics, from literary and cultural studies, to trans-historical research, to contributions to disability theory such as work in crip/queer studies.

Winners will receive a cash prize of $5000. The winner will be announced in January, 2017 at the Modern Language Association and will receive a contract from the University of Michigan Press to be published in the “Corporealities: Discourses of Disability” series.

Guidelines for Submissions for the 2016 Prize:

Eligible submissions are complete book-length monographic manuscripts not under consideration by another publisher. Manuscripts should be submitted by September 16, 2016 in digital format using the web form at umlib.us/siebers, along with 1) a description of the manuscript, 2) a statement regarding its relative contribution to the field of Disability Studies, 3) the word count and illustration count and 4) a current curriculum vitae.